A famous Chinese proverb says, “Every journey begins with a single step.” From getting my first ham radio license, to earning the coveted Summits on the Air (SOTA) “Mountain Goat” award with more than 1,000 SOTA activation points (not there…
The Yaesu FT-817ND can be either powered by its internal battery or by a external DC power source. When supplying the radio via its rear panel DC connector mechanical stress can lead the DC connector shearing off the connected PCB.…
If you want to receive signals from the ISS a simple rubber duck antenna is all you need. However, after a while you might start to lust for a bit more antenna gain. Consequently I’ve purchased a WiMo X-Quad Antenna…
Several times a year the ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) team is setting up SSTV (Slow Scan Television) events where images are transmitted from the ISS down to earth. The SSTV signal can be received with a conventional hand held radio…
Portable ham radio operation require a portable energy source, e.g. a rechargeable battery. Usually lithium based batteries are chosen because they store a lot of energy while at very low weight. However, there are different types of lithium based batteries…
The European SOTA Activity Day 2020 took place on Saturday, 19th September 2020. It developed out of the OE5 SOTA Day which usually takes place in the middle of September. OE5 SOTA Day was initially created to bring together SOTA…
The Yaesu FT-817ND is one of the smallest MF/HF/VHF/UHF multimode general-coverage amateur radio transceivers. Initially released as FT-817 in 2001 it was upgraded to FT-817ND in 2004. Another hardware revision led to the launch of the FT-818ND in 2019. This…
As outlined in my first post I simply love to operate battery powered in the great outdoors. Therefore it’s only natural to participate in the SOTA (Summits-On-The-Air) award program which requires setting up portable ham radio stations on the top…
The Yaesu FT-817ND is a little and versatile all-band multi-mode portable ham radio transceiver which I am using routinely during SOTA (Summits-On-The-Air) activations. Although the little radio is already quite capable in it’s default configuration there are several tuning options…
Hello everyone! My name is Alexander Entinger and I’m holder of the ham radio call signs OE5LXR and OE3LXR (rarely used). I’ve gotten licensed in 10/2016 after exhibiting at the Maker Fair Bodensee with my company LXRobotics with the booth…